


like a family member

by skatzaa



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood Edition, Gen, Obi-Wan Trains Luke, Pre-Star Wars: A New Hope, discussions of the Force, luke's childhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 19:22:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14960603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skatzaa/pseuds/skatzaa
Summary: “Auntie Ru!” Luke exclaims. “Look look, I did it!”Beru picks her head up.Luke is standing up on his seat, little arm outstretched toward the steering column though he’s still too small to reach it. His fingers are splayed out and she can tell he’s concentrating fiercely, despite the smile on his face, because the tip of his tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth.“Well,” she says faintly. “I guess it’s a good thing we’re going to visit Uncle Ben.”





	like a family member

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wrennette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrennette/gifts).



> For wrennette and the prompt: "I would love to see more of Obi-Wan training Luke for whatever reason."
> 
> Dear wrennette, I do hope you enjoy this! It has been really enjoyable to follow you on tumblr while I tried to decide what I was going to write. This was in part inspired by a post you reblogged recently ([this one here](https://wrennette.tumblr.com/post/174976242651/stormtrooper3326-little-luke-and-uncle)), so thank you for helping with your own gift! lol
> 
> I hope you enjoy it, it was a pleasure to write!

When it becomes clear that Owen won’t make it back from Mos Eisley before the suns set, Beru gathers Luke from his bedroom and starts up the extra landspeeder they still haven’t sold. It fights her—the old thing is finicky and worth more as scrap at this point. They still haven't managed to sell it because most of the time, it won't stay on long enough to get it to another settlement.

Beru bangs the front panel with her fist. The landspeeder doesn’t start, not that she had expected it to.

“Come on,” she says, leaning against the side to be able to reach the power circuit access. The suns have almost slipped below the horizon, but it’s still oppressively hot. She swipes at the sweat trickling down her temple. “Come  _ on _ , you karking  _ cheeskar nok _ —”

In the passenger seat, Luke giggles.

The landspeeder kicks to life. Beru allows herself a moment to relax, still draped halfway across the landspeeder. She drops her forehead low enough that she can feel the heat radiating from the metal and sighs.

“Auntie Ru!” Luke exclaims. “Look look, I did it!”

Beru picks her head up.

Luke is standing up on his seat, little arm outstretched toward the steering column though he’s still too small to reach it. His fingers are splayed out and she can tell he’s concentrating fiercely, despite the smile on his face, because the tip of his tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth.

“Well,” she says faintly. “I guess it’s a good thing we’re going to visit Uncle Ben.”

Luke gasps. His attention breaks away from the landspeeder and he whirls to look at her and it stalls out again. “We’re going to see Uncle Ben?”

“Yes, my little Trooshti,” she tells him, pushing herself up. “The farm will be okay for a few hours.” She climbs into the landspeeder, picks Luke up and plops him down again so he’s sitting properly. When he grins up at her, missing one of his front teeth, she boops him gently on the nose. “Now, can you show me how you did that again?”

*

Ben Kenobi’s little hut isn’t too far away with the help of a speeder, and Beru is thankful for it; the light is fading fast. It will be dark by the time they leave for home, and despite the short distance, it will be good to have a ‘saber wielder along with them in case the Tusken raiders get any ideas. 

Luke, dear child that he is, spends the time making up elaborate stories that he narrates with a wide variety of sound effects and silly voices. Beru can’t hear most of it over the roaring of the wind, but she smiles anyway. Owen worries, too much, about Luke turning into Anakin. Based on what they know of Anakin, she would also be concerned, if it was an _actual_ concern. But Luke has always been a sweet, happy child, and she sees more of herself and Owen in him than Anakin.

They reach Ben’s home just as the sky settles into the dark navy of night, speckled with stars here and there. Beru cuts the engine for the landspeeder and waits. Soft, orange light shines out of the single window by the door, which opens as she watches. Ben lingers in the doorway, thrown into shadows by the back lighting.

“Uncle Ben!” Luke says, clambering up to stand on his seat again. He waves his arm back and forth above his head. “I fixed the speeder!”

Ben steps forward until he’s close enough that Beru can see his face. He smiles faintly at Luke.

“Hello there, little one,” Ben says. Luke waves his arm again, so Ben comes and pulls Luke out of the landspeeder and into his arms. Luke snuggles into Ben’s shoulder and mumbles happily. “I didn’t know you were coming to visit me.”

“Me neither,” Luke says, muffled by the layers of Ben’s simple desert clothes. He’s fading fast, the excitement of the surprise and the effort it must have took to start the landspeeder taking their toll.

Ben brings his big hand up to rub Luke’s back. His beard is longer than the last time Beru saw him and his hair is just as overgrown as always; he truly looks the part of a crazed desert hermit.

Ben glances up again to where she’s still seated in the landspeeder. He says, voice pitched lower so as not to disturb Luke, “Why don’t you come in, Beru. We can talk inside.”

She places her hands on her thighs in an effort not to fidget. 

“I was hoping you’d come back to the farm, actually.” His ghost of a smile disappears; he levels a scowl at her instead. Beru holds up a hand. “I know you don’t think it’s safe, but I need help with Luke and Owen is at least another day out.”

Luke makes a soft noise at his name, but doesn’t pick his head up. Beru thinks he might be asleep.  Ben drops his gaze to look at him. 

“What do you need help with?” He asks.

“He got the speeder started using the Force,” she says, blunt, because there’s no use dancing around it.

Ben’s head snaps up, his eyes wide. “But he’s not yet five standard years. Even the most talented younglings—”

He cuts himself off.

“Exactly,” Beru says, rather than prying further into that topic. “I don’t know how to help him, but you can.”

Ben’s gaze drifts down to Luke once more, his big hand rubbing circles on Luke’s back. His expression is so sad—so desolate and full of self-recrimination—that it brings tears to Beru’s eyes. There’s so much she doesn’t know, things he won’t tell her because the memories are too sharp, or Owen doesn’t approve, or it could endanger her—but even what she does know is terrible. And the fact that he’s exiled himself here in the canyons when she considers him to be her friend makes it worse.

“Alright, I’ll stay for a few days,” Ben tells her, then raises a single, sardonic eyebrow. “But I won’t overstay my welcome. I’m aware that Owen isn’t particularly fond of me.”

Owen isn’t fond of Ben’s potential influence on Luke, but she doesn’t think she’ll tell him that right now.

Ben climbs into the passenger seat, careful not to jostle Luke. The entire trip back to the farm, Ben holds Luke securely against his chest with one hand, and Beru has a feeling that he keeps his other hand on the hilt of his lightsaber, tucked beneath the layers of his clothing. She has no doubt that he could manage to fight off the Sand People while still holding her child, and he would do it so carefully that Luke wouldn’t be disturbed.

She would trust him to do it. She wishes he knew that.

But it isn’t necessary. They reach the farm safely, and Beru sees to the clunky old landspeeder while Ben disappears down into the house. He’s been by often enough, over the past few years, to know where Luke’s room is. That’s where she figures he’s going.

When she pokes her head in through Luke’s door to check, she finds Luke, curled up and fast asleep on his bed, and Ben as well, stretched out on the floor with his outermost layer pillowed under his head.

“Ben,” she whispers in exasperation. “We have an extra room.”

Ben turns his head to look at her, eyelids drooping. “He asked me to stay.”

It doesn’t surprise her that Luke would ask, or that Ben would agree. Beru just shakes her head a little, smiling, and retreats back to her own room.

*

In the morning, she makes breakfast for two and a half, wolfs hers down, and then heads out to check on the moisture vaporators. The one farthest from the house is shorting out again, and so Beru spends the morning hunched over to get her hands on the faulty components tucked away into crevices and push them back into place again. She won’t be able to replace the parts until Owen returns from Mos Eisley, but this’ll hold for now. 

By the time she returns to the house, sandsore and aching, it is nearly time for lunch. She walks part way down the stairs, only to stop when she finds Ben and Luke sitting together in a patch of shade on the floor in the main room. Ben’s legs are crossed and he has Luke perched on one thigh. They both have a hand stretched out toward Luke’s favorite toy bantha, Ben's hand guiding Luke's own. Luke appears to be concentrating much harder than Ben is, his little tongue sticking out from between his lips again.

“Do you understand what I mean, Luke?” Ben asks. Luke furrows his brow and tilts his head, staring hard at the bantha. The toy wobbles, slightly.

“Yeah,” Luke says. “Like when Auntie Ru show me how to do something right when I mess up.”

“Yes, exactly,” Ben says. Beru watches him watch Luke. The bantha wobbles again. “The Force is sort of like a family member, giving us help when we can’t do something alone.”

Luke twists around to look at Ben. “Like when I need help pouring a drink!”

Ben laughs and ruffles Luke’s hair. “Yes, little one. The Force can help us with small things, like pouring a drink. But it can also help us with the big things.”

Luke goes back to staring at the bantha toy, his arm still outstretched. He frowns. 

“What kinda big things?”

Ben places his hand on Luke’s back to brace him. “Sometimes big things are changes we aren’t ready for. Or emotions that are too big for us to understand on our own. Does that make sense?”

The bantha wobbles and slowly lifts off the floor. Not by much, but enough that Beru can see it, even from her spot on the stairs.

“Is it like being really sad?” Luke asks. He’s so serious, so focused, that it makes Beru smile. “Auntie Ru said you are sad sometimes, because you lost your best friends. I tried to imagine not seeing Biggs again when she said, and that made me sad too.”

He looks up at Ben, eyes wide. The bantha drops, unnoticed, to the floor again. 

“Does the Force help you not feel sad, Uncle Ben?”

Ben stares down at Luke, and he is so still that it worries Beru. She hadn’t meant to put Ben in such a situation; the grandmother of one of the children in Luke’s schooling group died recently, and Ben’s sadness had been the only way she could think to help Luke understand. But Ben doesn’t look mad. Instead, he has that same heartbreaking look on his face from last night. Beru presses a hand to her chest, just above her racing heartbeat, and holds her other arm against her stomach to ground herself.

“Yes, Luke,” Ben says. His voice creaks; he isn’t that much older than herself and Owen, but there is already silver glinting in his hair. “Sometimes I get very sad because I lost all my friends. But then the Force helps me remember them. And it also reminds me that it’s okay to be sad sometimes, but that I also have a lot of things to be happy about too.”

Luke reaches up and lays his hand against Ben’s unkempt beard. He’s frowning more than before. 

So solemn, and so caring. She doesn’t understand how Owen sees anything of Anakin in him.

“Uncle Ben,” Luke tells him with a certainty belonging to a person four times his age. “You can be sad. Uncle Owen tells me it’s okay to be sad too.” He pats Ben’s cheek gently. “But you didn’t lose all your friends. You have me, and Auntie Ru, and even Uncle Owen!”

Ben laughs and reaches out to wrap Luke in a hug. Luke giggles and hugs him back, though his arms barely make it around Ben's shoulders.

“You are right, little one. I still have you.” Ben releases Luke, settling him back on his thigh. “And I am very thankful for that. Now, let’s try to lift the bantha again.”

Beru watches them for a moment longer, and then she finishes her descent into the house and slips into the kitchen.

Owen is afraid, and she understands that. But it only hurts Ben and Luke both to keep Ben at a distance. 

She and her husband will have a talk, Beru decides as she starts on making lunch. Once Owen returns from Mos Eisley, they’re going to have a _long_ conversation, because she’s not going to leave Ben without a family. She’s not going to let Luke go untrained, when there is someone who can help him understand things Beru and Owen have no concept of.

Beru nods to herself. Yes, that will need to happen. And she won’t take no for an answer.

**Author's Note:**

> And then Beru adopted Ben into the family and he trained Luke and nothing bad ever happened to them because the stormtroopers didn't get Owen and Beru and they reached the death star early enough that it didn't blow up Alderaan and everyone lived happily ever after!
> 
> It was actually incredibly difficult to not type Obi-Wan instead of Ben like, every time, so I hope I didn't slip and miss any instances of it! I hope you all enjoyed, thank you so much for reading! Comments and kudos are always appreciated! <3
> 
> Read on,  
> Skats


End file.
